Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen top in city ranking

The planning department of China's top economic regulator and an international think tank have jointly released a ranking of Chinese cities, aiming to offer a comprehensive assessment of the quality and sustainability of their development and to explore the future path of the country's urbanization.

The China Integrated City Index 2017, developed by the National Development and Reform Commission's development planning department and Cloud River Urban Research Institute, analyzed and evaluated 297 Chinese cities based on three main dimensions－society, economy and environment. The Index is an annual ranking of Chinese cities and the first edition was published in 2016.

Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen are the top three cities in the overall ranking of 2017, followed by Guangzhou and Tianjin in the fourth and fifth positions. Shanghai was the top city under the economic index while Shenzhen led the ranking in terms of environmental quality.

The ranking was built on the analysis of vast amounts of original data including satellite remote sensing data, and utilized a total of 175 indicators to carry out a comprehensive assessment of the cities, according to Zhou Muzhi, professor of economics at Tokyo Keizai University and head of Cloud River Urban Research Institute.

"With the support of such a massive amount of data, the ranking contains a lot of insightful information and some interesting development phenomenon in the cities, which could provide valuable resources for the policymakers," Zhou said.